I also think that some of the long-termism criticisms are not so easily severable from the questions he does address about epistemology and listening to the local people receiving aid. The long-termist nutjobs aren’t an aberration of EA-type utilitarianism. They are it’s logical conclusion. Even if this chapter ends with common sense prevailing over sci-fi nonsense it’s worth noting that this kind of absurdity can’t arise if you define effectiveness as listening to people and helping them get what they need rather than creating your own metrics that may or may not correlate outside of the most extreme cases.